


Taking Risks

by orphan_account



Series: Spectrum!Verse [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 17:24:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14898837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Events were predictable, people are not. That’s why Shane’s fears usually center around the ever changing nature of others. The what ifs. Non-constants. He’s taken precautions in establishing a tolerance of sorts towards such kerfuffle but there will always be times he has to risk it for the biscuit. He takes a chance on one Ryan Bergara.





	Taking Risks

They were in the middle of a long drive home when Shane decides to break the comfortable silence. 

“So,” His tone is light despite the severity of his admission, hand gliding against the curve of the steering wheel to steady his stream of thoughts. He sees his companion lift his attention off the screen of his phone and stop tapping on what undoubtedly was another list of haunted locations they could get visiting permissions for. “I may or may not feel things differently than most people do.” 

That understandably evokes an unimpressed sound from Ryan and a brief crinkling of his nose before he replies.  
“Yeah no shit, Sherlock. You were the one who laughed at public executions.” 

“I didn’t laugh at the public executions, Ryan. They get breakfast at execution events! It’s like going to Disneyland and getting a little restaurant seat so they can watch a parade.” Even thinking about it draws chuckles from him. “How can people not find that hilarious?” Morbid for sure. But there’s still something funny about the whole juxtaposition of how things went back then. It’s easy to just drop the subject. To let the natural flow of their bantering continue in a way that leaves the insides of his chest light with contentment. And for a few moments, he’s tempted to do just so. Yet if he does, he’ll probably never speak of this again.  
“No. I mean…I don’t feel things when I should be.” 

“What? Like being afraid of reasonable shit instead of someone randomly running up to you and injecting you with heroin?” 

“Hey! It could happen! That’s a reasonable fear.” The tight band of anticipation eases with each chuckle that’s forced out of him. Shane turns a corner. Regroups. “No, it’s not that. I meant stuff like empathy.”

He feels, more than sees, Ryan’s eyebrows rise several notches. It’s three tense heartbeats later that his companion’s furiously racing mind finally finds enough coherence to spit a reply back at Shane. 

“So…you’re saying that you’re someone who doesn’t…care about anyone or anything? Sorry I know this sounds bad and I’m not trying to be an asshole or anything but what are you getting at here?” Shane could see the grimace on Ryan’s face the moment he vocalises his words and he takes comfort in the fact that this is as equally awkward for him as it is for Shane. At the very least, Ryan’s not acting all freaked out. That would have been hurtful. 

The lankier of the duo takes another deep breath to brace himself. “Well it’s not like I don’t feel anything.It’s just….harder. I don’t care about most things, especially if they don’t pertain to people in my own social circle and stuff like that. I just care about some things.” His gaze darts with purpose to rest on his companion for a few brief seconds before he turns his attention to the road again. “Some people. And I pretend to care about other things to be, you know, polite.” 

That draws an ‘Oh’ out of Ryan. And if Shane looks just a little bit harder to see his expression under the dim lighting of the setting sun, he swears he could make out a ruddier colour staining the cheeks of his friend. But that’s something to read into for the future. Hopefully. It’s curious how it’s easier now once he forced his way through. Not the finding the right words part. Just the being able to continue part. Then again, that’s his problem. Finding the right words to things. “The thing I have. Makes it harder for me to find the right words to say or find the right things to do. Because I don’t process things the way other people do. I don’t feel shit the same way, I guess. Like- Like say maybe an animal died or something like that. I know that it’s probably a heartbreaking thing to people because they, you know, react in a certain way. And I try to uh. It’s like shitting for the bit. I take it as a cue and just kind of lay it out there, follow their example and carry it through. Without necessarily feeling the same emotion. Do I want the animal to die? No. I’m just not bummed out over it. But not everything’s as clear cut as that so it’s difficult for me to know how I’m supposed to react.” 

Ryan’s inhale is sharp but Shane doesn’t turn to look at him. He has no way of anticipating the expression on his face and maybe that’s better that way. When Ryan speaks, it’s with a quiet wonder. As if everything somehow made sense now. “You do that. You take a while to come up with shit to say sometimes, I’ve seen your face when you try to phrase things carefully. 

For the first time since the entire conversation, it’s Shane’s turn to be surprised. “I make faces for that? Is it obvious that I’m doing it?” 

“No no!” He’s somewhat mollified at Ryan’s scrambling to assure him. “It’s not obvious. Only when it’s this close.” A hand bumps against his shoulder lightly when Ryan gestured to their proximity. “Only when people squint really hard and you know, I’ve had to look at your ugly face for far too often.” 

A good to honest laugh slips from Shane at the good-natured ribbing. “You like my ugly face. You said faces like mine are attractive with the whole Cumberbatch story.” 

“Yeah but that doesn’t change the fact that you’ve got a strange face.” They both fell silent yet again. Three bus stops were driven past before Ryan pipes up once more with another question. “So do you…do you think it’s some kind of uh.” Shane catches him gesticulating out of his peripheral vision. “Do you think it’s some kind of mental thing? Are you..god why is this is so difficult- are you, are you a sociopath or something? Does that make you one?”

His struggling has Shane snorting with amusement. Ryan’s struggling almost always does. This time round, he takes mercy on the both of them and decides to cooperate.

“That’s not the right term and too media cliche-y but I suppose it puts me somewhere on the spectrum. We’re not sure yet. My therapist and I- we’re figuring it out.” 

Ryan seems to think that as a satisfactory answer because he nods and settled down once again, though Shane doesn’t have to be a mind reader to feel the cogs in his brain practically working on overtime to process the information he’d been given. “I don’t know what to say to that, man. That’s some heavy stuff. Uh…Thank you? For telling me that. You didn’t have to say it and all but I guess, thanks.” 

“Wait, just like that?” 

“Yeah, just like that. What else am I supposed to say? It’s strange to me, obviously. But you’ve always been strange. You made the whole stupid Hot dog thing for god’s sake. So this is odd but I’m not gonna judge you for it anymore than I judge your hot daga story. Unless you start killing people and shit. Which you’re not, are you?” The joke’s a morbid one and Ryan’s squinting his eyes at him for comical effect. It shouldn’t make him snort but it does. Shane rolled his eyes briefly at him in return. 

“No, of course not. I mean I’ve thought about it. But who honestly can’t say they’ve never thought about running people over when they cut you off in traffic. Besides, you’ve threatened to kill me multiple times. Just because I’ve thought about it doesn’t mean I wanna do it. Everyone’s capable of doing stuff like that, with or without being on the spectrum.”

“Not a particularly comforting thought to mention when you’re currently the one driving but right, that’s fair.” They broke off into bouts of snickering again. Though the next question Ryan asked hits a little too close to home. “So. Have you uh…Have you hurt anyone because of this? Unintentionally or not.” The latter part is hastily added.

"Wow loaded question there.” His fingers twitched briefly. Shane releases a heavy breath. “No? At least not that I know of. Sometimes I don’t realise- wait fuck.” Frustration mars his features. It’d be easy to get away with it if he expressed that he isn’t aware he’d hurt people because he doesn’t mean to. It’d be easy to paint himself in a better light. A more acceptable one. It’d be easier if he pretended to feel some modicum of regret. But that would also defeat the entire purpose of this whole talk he started. This is Ryan. He’s not going to use that sort of information against him- he has no definite proof anyways. Ryan’s better than that. Better in ways Shane sometimes wishes he could emulate. He’s not the type of person to be an asshole like that. 

“Sorry I’m….embellishing. Let me try again.” Another deep breath. He forces himself to relax his grip on the steering wheel. Since when did he tense up? “I have. Sometimes it’s unintentional. Sometimes…I have this impulse, you see? I don’t mean for it to be there but it just is. I have this impulse to do or say things just to see how people would react to them. Just to see how far I can push them before they…respond. Not because I want to hurt them, it’s just…I wanted to know what they’re like. How they think. How they feel. How they respond to things. I was curious.” His lips twisted into a grimace. “That impulse makes me inconsiderate sometimes and I’m working on it. I’ve been working on it for years.”

It’s just like what he does. Shutting Ryan in spooky places for longer on purpose. Pretending to sleep so he could watch him get gradually more and more frightened during the rare occasions they’d stay for a sleepover at whatever haunted location. Rationalise away everything when he gets too scared and persisting until he gets annoyed but never too much. He just wants to know, wants to see how far he can push the boundary without having Ryan experience a nervous breakdown. That’s just…how he is. 

“I’m generally good at controlling that impulse. And doing our show…helps in a weird way.” Because he could give in to that impulse within limits instead of suppressing it. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t do things on purpose from time to time but….I don’t want to. Not with you. I’ll mess up once in a while though.”

That’s truthfully the only thing Shane could give as an answer. “I’m not saying that you’ve got to feel like you need to accept that or something. I’m just..it’s just gonna happen. Especially when I feel like I’m in trouble or someone does something exceptionally shitty.” He feels hollowed out for some reason. A kind of exhaustion that sinks into even his bones. Ryan doesn’t have to ask him but Shane knows that he’s probably wondering why. Why now? Why tell him?

“I just wanted to let you know.” That impulse. Again, that impulse. But he’s not lying when he said he wanted Ryan to know. “If there was anyone I wanted to know about this, besides my family and therapist, it’d be you.” 

Now he’s done it. Thrown everything right there out in the open. Kicked the door off it’s hinges and yelled at spooky bois that are even spookier than the non-existent spooky bois they’re searching for. The ball is now in Ryan’s court. 

As it turns out, he doesn’t have long to wait.“Yeah because I’m the only one who can handle your shit and dish it back to you. I’d be old and greying and I’d still kick your ass when you’re being a dick.” He feels the heat of Ryan’s palm before it descended against his shoulder in a slap. Except it stays there for a moment longer, closing in a firm squeeze. 

The breathe caught in his throat eases in shaky sputters.

“Alright, so after we’ve gotten this ‘moment’ out of the way and we’ve established that I’ll still kick your ass regardless, can we at least stop by for food? I swear if I have to sit another hour longer waiting for this stupid traffic to hurry up, I’m going to lose my shit.” 

Another snort of amusement escaped Shane. Typical Ryan. Quick to irritate and and straightforward, but also refreshingly capable of wading through everything in stride even if it’s out of his depth. This…this is okay. This is better than okay. 

“Yeah I can do that.” 

A pause. 

“Sour Puss Bergara.” 

“Shut up, Shane.”

**Author's Note:**

> To start off, this is a coping fic I’ve written to get some closure for myself and I’d like to thank the writers who placed in genuine effort to thoughtfully write about Shane with ASPD. If it weren’t for them, I probably wouldn’t have the will to do this. I personally am someone who’s on the spectrum and that’s not something I would ever be able to share with anyone in my own social circle. This is as close I’ll ever be able to get to acceptance. Now for the sake of accuracy and to avoid taking too much liberties, I’ll say that in this story, Shane’s on the spectrum like myself instead. 
> 
> You can let me know what you think of it in the comments or over here at my [blog](https://spoopybruh.tumblr.com/)


End file.
